This study was designed to understand the current state of wildlife-friendly landscape maintenance practices and the associated barriers and motivations among Florida green industry professionals. A Delphi technique to achieve consensus, along with descriptive survey questions, was used to facilitate feedback from Florida-based green industry…

Differences in attitudes, perceived behavioral control, social norms (i.e., influence of others), and intent to engage in good residential landscape fertilizer practices were examined among people with high- and low-exposure to water bodies (blue space). Florida's residential fertilizer users are exposed to stormwater retention ponds, lakes, and…

Extension provides personalized educational services collectively known as individual contact teaching (ICT), yet these services often are not evaluated. This article presents results from pilot testing of an approach for evaluating ICT. Extension representatives and clientele provided data on ICT events, primarily office consultations and…

Most educational programs are designed to produce lower level outcomes, and Extension educators are challenged to produce behavior change in target audiences. Social norms are a very powerful proven tool for encouraging sustainable behavior change among Extension's target audiences. Minor modifications to program content to demonstrate the…

This study tested the effect of four short videos appealing to environmental values on home irrigation users' intent to use good irrigation and fertilization practices. The videos were largely ineffective, and there was only a small effect on one of the behaviors within the fertilizer loss treatment group. Implications point to a need for…

Smart phone applications are rapidly gaining popularity, and Extension programs are eager to use this teaching tool. But developing an application can be time intensive and costly. Students in environmental horticulture at the University of Florida teamed with the Florida-Friendly Landscaping™ program to develop an application with an extensive…

A tool from social marketing can help Extension agents understand distinct audience segments among their constituents. Defining targeted audiences for Extension programming is a first step to influencing behavior change among the public. An online survey was conducted using an Extension email list for urban households receiving a monthly lawn and…

Master Gardeners are very important in helping Extension deliver horticultural information to local citizens. The theoretical framework of the study reported here was based on Houle's Typology. The purpose was to develop an understanding of adult motivations to participate in the Florida Master Gardener program. The sampled population was 613…

This article describes the Nursery Operations Curriculum, a competency-based instructional program currently being disseminated throughout Florida. The description covers the curriculum materials, the developmental activities, validation of the curriculum, and plans for implementing the curriculum. (BM)

This packet contains a program guide and a career map for the implementation of a nursery operations program in Florida secondary and postsecondary schools. The program guide describes the program content and structure, provides a program description, lists job titles under the program, explains licensing, and includes a curriculum framework and…

This article summarizes a 2000 study of school garden programs and their variation and the impact of such variation on 427 third-grade students' sense of responsibility and attitudes toward science and the environment. A teacher questionnaire was developed to gain insight into how teachers use school gardens with their students and in their…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to illustrate that campus and urban landscaping has important connections to biodiversity conservation, perceptions of natural heritage, sense-of-place, ecological literacy and the role of campus landscapes in the larger community. It also aims to show how campus landscapes express values and perform as a…

Based on a survey of 710 randomly selected persons from the Pinellas County (St. Petersburg area), Florida, Cooperative Extension mailing list, 54 of 566 respondents (9.5 percent) were willing to volunteer part of their time to assist the local Extension education program. Most respondents indicated home economics and horticulture as the main…

The unit of individualized learning activities is designed to provide training in grounds maintenance. The materials in the unit are divided into two sections. The developmental or preliminary phase (15 pages) is for use by the instructor and includes brief descriptions of the job and of the student population, along with listings of the specific…

This document contains agribusiness and natural resources education courses standards for 43 exploratory courses, practical arts courses, and job preparatory programs offered at the secondary or postsecondary level in Florida. Each program courses standard is composed of two parts. The first part, the curriculum framework, includes four major…